Friday, February 18, 2011

Vampires are everywhere. Your movies, your books, your T.V. It's hard to offer up something new when a subject is already centuries old.

But sometimes new isn't necessarily good. Sometimes, if a concept cannot be executed with quality, t'is better to leave it alone. But I know how it works. Studios see Twilight making money and they think the public craves vampires. Which is how this movie starts.

When the movie starts, we see a girl scribble a few notes about how she can't age and change, and she goes out to see the sunset. Her eyes grow yellow, as we realize she is a vampire. Also, the sun makes her burst into flames.

I've seen burnier. I used to work in a tourist destination...

What follows is exposition in narrated form. Apparently there was a war between Vampires and Regular humans, and we lost it. We should have been working on them whipping skills. As such, they made a deal with us that they would turn whoever wanted to live forever into a vampire, and use everyone else as food, completely ripping off the Animatrix. Apparently most people agreed to go 'pire.

Seriously, how can we lose against vampires? They are vulnerable when we are awake, and Italian food kills them. Seriously, a few Patriot Missiles to Castle Dracula and he's ashes.

Not you too, Uncle Sam!

Society has reformed around the immortal Nosferatu. The go to work, use underground tunnels to commute during the day, and have to buy blood. Oh, yeah, if they don't drink blood they become mindless monsters.

So, vampirism is a real hassle, basically.

If vampire society sounds completely unremarkable and indistinguishable from ours, it's because it is. Not only are this vampires deprived from vampire powers such as morphing into bats, super speed, and awesome theatrics, but asides from having fangs and creepy eyes they are just average people. How did we lose to these guys again?

So we meet our hero, renowned hematologist...guy from Sugar Ray?

Well, I thought they looked alike, anyway.

Our good doctor is being pushed to produce a substitute for human blood by his boss, because it seems there isn't enough supply for the whole world. Farm humans are kept in large, Matrix knockoff farms where blood is drawn from them.In short, they are running out of humans and need something else.

Hey, for immortals, we sure are shortsighted...

Well, good fucking job, vampires. The one resource you need to keep being a cool immortal and you don't know how to make more. Here's a hint, fangboys. It starts at the genitals.

If you wanted human farms that keeps on delivering, keep the humees in a nice enclosed jail farm, give them some food, wine and privacy and watch the magic happen. It's how planet earth got overpopulated. You guys used to be human, you should know this.

But our hero has a soft spot for the normals, as his brother nags him for being such a pussy about drinking human blood. They get in a fight at his apartment and spill a bottle of plasma that attracts a full gone vampire who wandered in .

I blame Onision.

So this crazed, beast like vampire is licking the spilled blood, and all they have to do is call 911( you guys know how to count, right?) and leave it alone, but instead they decide they should fight him. All he wanted was the blood, no need to risk it. But they bother it and it attacks them and they have a fight scene. They kill the hell out of the hobo-pire by stabbing him and cutting off his head.

A distraught Dr Sugar Ray drives away, trying to clear his head, when he has a car crash! He tries to trade vampire insurance with the people on the other car but he can't. Because they're humans.

Yes, apparently some humans remain "in the wild". Hiding and traveling during the day, this "Daybreakers" are not only the last vestiges of non-vampiredom, going around with crossbows hoping to find a cure for vampirism. Naturally they shoot Dr Sugar Ray in the arm, and he helps them.

Later, after talking more to his boss about how much they need a substitute, but how it can't really ever be better than the sweet, creamy taste of human blood that their clients love, the Daybreakers, lead by IMPLIED ROMANTIC INTEREST D-44, break into his house and ask him for help.

He's the bad guy ;)

He agrees to meet the humans' leader, played by Willem Dafoe who claims he used to be a vampire, and he got cured, and that Dr Bartender can help figure out what the cure is. But soon his brother catches up with him and brings the vampire police to help catch the stray humans. This leads to a chase sequence. With an improbable escape.

As they arrive at the human's place Willem Dafoe describes how he was cured. He was driving around in a modded vampire care (because the sun, as expected, burns the hell out of them) looking at his hands, when he crashed, flew out the window, engulfed in flames, and fell into a river. And he wants the Doctor to repeat the experiment.

He saw his car crashing potential

Waitaminit? What's the deal with this vampires? It's time for a little game of...

This vampires could be biological beings. Maybe in a stupid way, like in Ultraviolet.

On the other hand, they could be the undead. They burst in flames at the sunlight and do not age.

Or they could be living beings. They don't have any special powers or metaphysical abilities.

Or they could be demons, possessed by dark forces that require blood and slaughter. They don't show in mirrors.

Or they could be biological, because outside of a craving for blood to the point of berserker fits and mutation, they don't seem naturally driven to perversity.

So which is it? The movie doesn't know and won't tell. Thanks for playing!

Meanwhile, Things in vampire land are not so hot. humans are running out even more, and our hero's boss, tries to get his brother to turn on him...even morerere.

We also get to know that the young woman at the start of the movie is the Boss' daughter and that she also became human by way of immolation. She's now with a group that quickly gets captured by Vampire forces. Then she's turned into a vampire. Then they run out of humans(!) so without blood, she goes feral. So they haul her and many other ferals into the sun.

Yeah, two deaths in a movie and never met the protagonists. This was very important.

The Doctor, Willem Dafoe and IRID-44 discover that it is in fact water that somehow turns the vampires combustive reaction to the sun into an undo by testing on himself. He tries to ask his vampire scientist friend to help, but he turns on him.Then IRID-44 gets captured and taken to the Bosses' base.

And it happens because they let him have a private phone call. Idiots.

Willem Dafoe and Dr Mark McGrath make their way to the bosses building, but his brother is waiting. They get in a standoff and eventually his brother bites the hell out of Willem Dafoe...then begins to writhe in pain. Anyone with half a brain understands what is happening.

Eventually the Doctor gives himself up and goes to the bosses office where IRID-44 is being held and starts trying to tick him off, even reminding him of his daughter. The boss bites him and then becomes human. Biting an un-vampired aparently does that.

I don't know.

It's a remarkable turn of events. They could unvampire everyone now that they have the boss of the blood store and four unvampires. Or they could tie the boss to the elevator and kill him for being a jerk.''

I mean, it's just saving the world from vampires! Let me get a little pointless vengeance first.

So a bunch of vampires rip him to shreds in a show of strenght not seen so far in the movie. Dafoe and Sugar Ray's brother come to help IRID-44 and the Doctor, but run into more Vampire Swat guys, who swarm the brother in a feeding frenzy, the guards that bite him become human, but are inmediately attacked by the others. It's kindo of logical, but also kind of lame.

This is Bush's fault somehow.

Eventually, only 3 of the Swat guys are alive, only to be shot by the scientist's friend. He kinda doesn't have any reason to, and he should at least be frenzied himself, but whatever. He is killed, our heroes drive into the sunset, the end.

I must say this movie is bland, bland bland. The premise of a world where vampires rule sounded interesting, but it's just boring because it's pretty much our world. Going to work isn't more interesting because it's vampires going to work. If there was a message, it was very confused about what it was. Compared to KOF, though, It is at least nice to look at.

1 comment:

I like how they took the vampire story in a different direction than they usually do. I watch a ton of horror movies and most vampire movies have the same plot. I work for Dish Network and I hadn't seen this movie until recently when I saw it available to order in HD. I liked it, the only thing I felt lost on was the whole process of changing someone back into a human. Still if you like vampire movies this one is different and I thought it was entertaining. The gory scenes were better in HD for sure.

One of this guys is asking you to be prepared for a coup . The other is asking you to be prepared to put hair on your horns . Names are fun....

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